Is it a China-US war?
Is it a China-US war?
SAD to say, in world geopolitics, it is many times "Might is Right" rather than "Right is Might."
The Roman Empire, Spain, Portugal and even Britain and the United States colonized parts of the globe on sheer strength of might, economic or military.
Not all "Might," of course, prevails if there is an element of "coercion" done on its own people as the fall of Rome, Germany, the USSR, Eastern Europe and some Arab states had painfully discovered.
China however, realized soon enough to liberalize her economic straight jackets and political strangulation of her citizens in the last decades. It is paying off today.
Today, the Philippines is in a "standoff" at the Scarborough Shoal off Zambales with Chinese and Philippine vessels in a "staring down" contest.
Is it really a serious China-RP war or a proxy fight between China and the USA with RP as the pawn?
What are the givens in this case of grave international import?
First is that China is going to be a giant that will dominate the 21st Century.
Second is that the US is faltering economically but remains the largest military power there still is, with inclinations to play "Robocop."
The core problem lies in the fact that the South China Sea's "ownership" is one of the "three non-negotiable tenets" of China's foreign policy. The other two are the absorption of Hong Kong and the assimilation of Tibet. China will impose her will in the issue of the South China Sea where the Scarborough Shoal is a parcel of.
But why are we all quarreling over some rocks and wide blue sea out there? The answer is that the one of basis of sovereignty is also economics. There is so much oil there ($26 trillion worth, said the Philippine News Agency, culled from research of military sources in RP), other minerals like gold and a rich marine life. It is a place to die for.
That is the reason there are many claimants to this "gold mine by the sea" —China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines.
A shooting war between China and the Philippines is a comedy of a Goliath versus David without the slingshot. We have no single fighter jet for the Air Force and we have vintage war ships for the Navy.
The ancients had advised us all. One is "Do not fight a war that you have no chance of winning." The other one is "Do not fight a battle where victory is meaningless."
The first advice is for the Philippines, the second for China.
What then are the choices for the Philippines to lay claim to her sovereign rights over the islands?
There is the legal route. Two old maps: the 1734 version by Spanish priest Fr. Pedro Murilo Velarde and the 1690 Venice version as illustrated by Italian Vicernzo Cornelli indicating that the Spratly Islands belong to the Philippines.
There are also international arbiters of territorial justice: The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the International Court of Justice.
The problem is that China does not want to submit to a multilateral body resolution and would opt for a bilateral negotiation between two nations.
Militarily, the Philippines can invoke the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between the USA and the Philippines where one will help when the other is attacked militarily. But shots have not been fired yet.
All that is needed is to remind the USA about the "Manila Declaration" signed in December aboard the USS Fitzgerald between President Aquino and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton which was basically a reaffirmation of the obscure but enforceable defense treaty.
Will the US respond if the Chinese fires the first shot at the Philippine ships at the shoal?
There is the other way—the political route of convincing the Asean to have some binding conduct of behavior in this controversy. Speaking as one region—one of the fastest growing at that—will matter to China.
There is the gentle persuasion to be done in Europe for them not to lift the "arms embargo" on China after the massacre of civilians in Tiananmen Square. That will partly freeze the road of China's becoming a hawk militarily.
Will all of these work?
The bottom line is the world can ignore the second-largest economy in the world (China) at the risk of being called an ignoramus in the "geopolitik of size."
All the players—the US, Asean and Europe - need China one way or the other. They need capital—investments and loans from cash rich China, their cheap products and their billion consumers as a big market for exports. The sad problem faced by our banana and fruit exporters to China recently is a case in point.
Among the biggest movers in the struggling US today are Chinese loans and equity. The Chinese are even putting up firms in the US that hire mostly Americans. Can the US do with a "shooting war" after Iraq and Saddam?
This is where the theory of the "Might is Right" comes into distinct play. China is Mr Might, right now.
China cannot be overcome, only contained. And the only area left for containment of China by the US is through military means.
Last year the US did visits and communiques and moved its forces in allied countries like Japan, Australia, Guam, the Philippines and Thailand. The US knows what is at stake.
China will put her first aircraft carrier in August near the disputed shoal area while the US will add one more aircraft carrier in the Asia-Pacific region. A show of force.
What we see is a stalemate between the China and US where force build-up is actually a mutual deterrent to actual war. Much like a 21st century version of the Cold War.
Will China fire at Philippine boats? We think NOT—a victory there will be meaningless—where political, economic and military backlash from everywhere—will be far greater than its victory.
Do not underestimate the Chinese, though; they are smarter than we think. Do not forget that the great military book called The Art of War was written by a Chinese. Basically the book said that the best way to win a war is avoiding it. Enough said.
But is the Shoal imbroglio really a China-US war? You bet your bottom peso, it is.
****